Supervisors with this research interest

Faculty of Health Sciences

Nat Sch of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine

Sandra is a Lecturer in the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Paramedicine at ACU, based in sunny Brisbane at the McAuley at Banyo campus. She has been teaching nursing for over 25 years, specialising in research supervision, paediatric and child & adolescent health nursing and nurse immunisation.

Sandra is a Research Fellow at The Nursing Research and Practice Development Centre (NRPDC) of The Prince Charles Hospital (TPCH) in Brisbane, where she focuses on the strategic research priorities of pressure injury prevention and falls injury prevention. The NRPDC comprises a team of researchers from ACU and TPCH, led by Professor Paul Fulbrook, with a proven track record in this program of research.

Sandra is eligible to supervise PhD and BN Honours students, as well as students undertaking research and project units in various Masters programs across ACU. Students are able to select from a range of projects relevant to the research priorities of NRPDC (pressure injury prevention and falls injury prevention), with several projects readily available for students to join the team. As well, students may be able to participate in a Clinical School development and evaluation project.
Sandra has previously co-supervised students studying nurses' prescription of pressure injury prevention interventions; the relationship between hospital-acquired pressure injuries and a long stay in the emergency department; falls injury risk screening in the ED; skin tear prevalence; examining microbial and protein qualities of prepared and stored infant formula; understanding the experiences of women breastfeeding an infant with tongue tie, decision making about using continuous fetal monitoring for low risk labouring women.

For her PhD, Sandra conducted a cluster, pragmatic randomised controlled trial examining the effects of a daily sensory motor development program on children's development, behaviour, and academic learning outcomes. Sandra used the research approach, phenomenography, in her Masters research, which sought to understand the phenomenon of clinical experience for postgraduate nurses studying paediatric and child health nursing. She has a level of expertise with several other research designs and approaches.

Sandra is an approachable and practical research supervisor, who provides solid support and structure for students. She is keen to hear from any student interested in her specialty research areas.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3490-7383